


Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken

by Paradise_of_Mary_Jane



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Azkaban, Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-11
Updated: 2015-07-11
Packaged: 2018-04-08 18:55:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4315944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paradise_of_Mary_Jane/pseuds/Paradise_of_Mary_Jane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bellatrix Lestrange and the darkness that is Azkaban.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [BearSpirit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BearSpirit/pseuds/BearSpirit) in the [HPprompts](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/HPprompts) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> What's happening behind the locked, Dementor-guarded doors of this infamous wizard prison?
> 
> Bonus points if the story focuses on either of the Black cousins. Even more bonus points if they interact.
> 
>  
> 
> **Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. Title comes from 'A Song of Ice and Fire' series. I don't own that either.**

Darkness. That was the first thing Bellatrix Lestrange noticed about Azkaban, it was completely dark.

The dementors held her at each arm. Bellatrix fought to keep her body as still as possible, to keep herself from flinching away from the repulsive creatures that stood at her sides. She kept her steps sure and even as they escorted her to her cell. She refused to be cowed, even here in Azkaban.

Lamps in the halls were few and far in between, giving just enough light for one to get a vague impression of a hallway, the dementors here needed no light after all. But it wasn’t just in a physical perspective. Oh no, Azkaban felt as if it was made of complete darkness, from the walls, the air, to the very being of those cursed guards.

Bellatrix could feel it entering her as well, enveloping her soul. It was entirely different from the darkness that she chose to cover herself with, the darkness so dark it was nearly blinding. The darkness in the fortress of Azkaban was just that: darkness. A black hole, sucking everything inside her, even the parts of her that burned bright. Until there was nothing left of the Bellatrix Lestrange who stood at the Dark Lord’s right hand. It was taking every single piece of self-control she had to stop herself from joining in the screaming in her mind. She did not regret causing those screams and she did not regret being imprisoned in this cell, not if it was in his name.

They thought they could smother her, destroy her and break her. Bellatrix was more than ready to prove them wrong. Her light burned brighter than the sun and they had forgotten that the stars were always at their brightest in the darkest of nights.

She remembered the words she had said to Wizengamot and even now they still rang true in her ears.

She will wait, no matter how long it took and how much she lost, she will wait. And she will be honoured above all his other supporters for she alone was faithful.

The dementors threw her unceremoniously into the cell and slammed the door shut. She was left in complete darkness with the screams of the other prisoner and the ones in her mind ringing in her ears.

Bellatrix closed her eyes and refused to give into the screams. She was Bellatrix Lestrange, the eldest daughter of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, she felt no regret for her actions nor her beliefs. And she certainly felt no remorse.

Thus began her first day in Azkaban.

 

* * *

 

It was on her second day that Bellatrix finally succumbed to the screams, though not in the way you might think because she was Bellatrix and she was nothing if not unexpected. At least she thought it was her second day, it was impossible to tell the time here, not in the constant darkness.

The dementor had stayed at her door all night after bringing her food and the screams had stayed with Bellatrix throughout, not allowing her to get a minute of sleep and through all of it, Bellatrix smiled.

She didn’t just smile, she laughed, and giggled, and allowed it to engulf of her. Those were the screams of the traitors, those unworthy of their place in the wizarding world and the earth they walked on. Those were the screams of the ones who brought her closer and closer to him.

She may have succumbed to their screams but she would shed no tears for them and she would not scream. She would only allow herself to laugh for that is what they deserved.

 

* * *

 

Bellatrix had ceased trying to keep track of time at some point. She just curled in her cell, head held down by her arms and laughed and laughed and tried not to join the screaming in her mind. When they placed a prisoner in the cell directly across her Bellatrix looked up for the first time in what she felt like days, or perhaps it was weeks.

Many had passed through the halls and into the darkness throughout her imprisonment, and Bellatrix had never paid them any heed. But there was something different about this one prisoner. He wasn’t screaming like the rest, and he wasn’t begging or sobbing. The new prisoner was laughing. Just like her.

And Bellatrix knew that voice, had known it since she was a small girl. Of all the people she would have expected in Azkaban, he was one of the last she would have thought of. Oh how does fate manage to keep itself unpredictable.

It was the voice of her wayward cousin.

“Hello my little Siri. Here you are, right with your dear beloved cousin. I always knew you would make me proud.” Her voice was hoarse from disuse but Sirius was here and that elicited that she speak. She never could resist winding him up in their childhood and this was no different. They were still in a hell, the only thing that changed is that others knew that it existed as well.

Sirius looked up, and Bellatrix couldn’t see his eyes but she knew that he was glaring at her.

“Bella,” he said, voice full of tightness and something that hadn’t there before, something that he had always kept in check and denied. Something almost like glee and hysteria mixed in with hate and pain. “Keep the hell away from me.”

“You found yourself where you belonged after all,” she said in a sickly sweet voice, choosing to ignore his words. Sirius’ presence was keeping the screams at bay and Bellatrix craved rest from it. “Tell me, what did the little Gryffindor boy do to land himself in the naughty place?”

“Sod off Bella,” said Sirius. He always had a temper that burned brighter than anything else. Bellatrix should have known that Azkaban would do nothing to quell it.

“Say that now,” cooed Bellatrix. He was here, and somehow he kept the screams at bay. “But here little Siri, I’m the only thing that’ll keep you sane.”

And that, Bellatrix feared, went both ways.

 

* * *

 

Bellatrix didn’t know at one point she began screaming.

She could hear her screams every waking moments and her nightmares offered no comfort, they just threw in the added pain of images.

Whenever she woke up, sweating and breathing hard, the faces of those she didn’t know forever frozen in pain and terror, and she would laugh. Force herself to laugh and laugh and laugh. They deserved it, they deserved every pain they felt. They deserved it and Bellatrix was more than ready to deliver justice.

She could only laugh.

They weren’t ones of happiness though. Happiness was a ray of light and it went the way that every ray of light went in the place of darkness; it disappeared before it could even exist. But still she laughed, and Bellatrix didn’t really know what she felt any more, just that she needed to laugh and laugh and laugh. Laugh as if her life depended on it and maybe it did.

But still the screams continued. Bellatrix didn’t know when the laughter turned into shrieks. She didn’t know when she began clawing at the cells, at the guards, towards Sirius. She didn’t know when she began clawing at her hair, at her skin, at every surface that was closest to her but she did it with the same vigour that she laughed. As if her life depended on it.

And she knew, though she didn’t know how, that it did.

 

* * *

 

Sirius never screamed. It was nearly impossible to notice amidst all the other screams, but Sirius never did. He usually just sat in his cell, silent and unmoving, sometimes Bellatrix thought she sometimes heard the bark of a dog. Even in his sleep, he never screamed. He begged and cried and sobbed and begged again but no scream came from his lips.

It was as if he felt no fear, as if there were no screams that haunted him and threatened to take over.

Bellatrix envied him and hated him at the same time.

 

* * *

 

Bellatrix hadn’t thought it could get worse when it did.

Suddenly the images that haunted her nightmares haunted her waking hours as well.

They were no longer just the people whose names she had long forgotten, they were so much worse.

They were of her father, her mother, her sisters, even her cousins. They screamed words to her, words that she never knew could hurt until her heart was left broken and bleeding.

Sometimes she could feel them, standing right beside her, with whispered words of condemnation, betrayal and everything she never knew she feared.

Her father would loom over her, out of the corner of her eye, proclaiming failure after failure that Bellatrix wanted nothing more than to forget.

She would feel Andromeda sitting right beside her, saying in that smirking tone of hers, how ecstatic she was to return home and meet her betrothed. It was a memory that Bellatrix had no intention of remembering. She had known that her sister was lying and paid it no heed because Andromeda always had a habit of lying, she just hadn’t known it was the last time she would ever speak with Andromeda ever again.

Worst of all was when  _he_ himself came. Full of anger, condemnation… disgust.

Sometimes he would call her a traitor, say that she was unworthy of the honour of standing at his side. That she was weak.

Sometimes Bellatrix would forget that none of it was real.

She would scream, tears streaming endlessly from her eyes, begging for forgiveness, another chance, anything. She would clutch at the bars of her cell, clawing at the walls, at the floor, at the guards whenever they got close enough to her reach, desperate to prove her worth. They all turned away in the end and Bellatrix could feel the smiles on their faces, she could hear the thoughts in their mind, how they mocked her weakness, how they believed her broken beyond repair. How they believed her unworthy.

She wasn’t. Her resolve was still firm and she remained unbowed. She could not show weakness, not to them, not to those who keep her here, not to anyone. And especially not to  _him_ .

She was strong and she would not be broken. She had that to prove to everyone that mattered.

In the end it was easier to laugh so that was what she returned to. It had always been easier to laugh, even as a child, laughing away the pain of a scraped knee, and laughing as she hacked of Andromeda’s hair for pushing her down a river; laughing as she fired curse after curse at her cousins. Laughing to her parents’ faces when they punished her.

They feared her because of it. Bellatrix knew that. Everyone feared her because of it. They feared her because she felt no fear and played with everything she came across with the glee of a child. She would have them fear her again.

Bellatrix threw her head back and allowed herself to laugh, using her tears, her pain, her fears, as her fuel. They did not exist in her laughter, and neither did her happiness. There was only Bellatrix and her strength.

She laughed and laughed and laughed. It was better than screaming and she would no longer allow herself to bleed. She felt no pain, and she was untouchable.

When he finally came for her, and he will, he would find her unbowed and unbroken.

This was her madness and she let it envelop her as easily as she allowed his darkness to.

And she would once again shine brighter than the sun.

 

* * *

  
Sometimes she screamed at Sirius. Insults, taunts, sometimes not even words, just screams, shouts that meant nothing and Sirius would remain silent throughout. Bellatrix didn’t know if it was in contempt or in guilt.

She made it a personal challenge to get Sirius to react, to respond to her. Somehow, it kept her screams at bay.

“It’s that little Potter brat isn’t it,” she hissed pulling at her chains hard enough to make her wrists bleed. The dementors had taken to keeping her chained to stop her from clawing at everything she could reach for. “He and his mudblood wife. They’re the reason you’re here isn’t it my little Siri?”

“Shut up,” said Sirius hoarsely. Bellatrix found a wide smile forming on her face. She knew that Sirius had just woken from a nightmare and she needed no prompting to figure out what it was about.

“It is isn’t it?” she said, her voice taking on a sickly sweet tone. The screams had faded into nothing more than a whisper. “Word gets around fast my little Siri, and word is that you’re the reason they’re dead.”

“Shut up,” said Sirius and there was more than a hint of anger in his voice, and grief and guilt and maybe a little madness. Perhaps Sirius wasn’t as unaffected by the dementors as he seemed.

“But you are, aren’t you,” said Bellatrix. “You could have been the secret keeper couldn’t you, but you didn’t. You were too scared and made sweet little Peter do it. You should have known better than thinking he was trustworthy.”

“Shut up!” screamed Sirius and Bellatrix heard him fly at his bars. “Shut up! DON’T YOU DARE MENTION THAT FILTHY RAT TO ME!”

“Temper, temper my little Siri,” said Bellatrix and if possible the smile on her face widened. Once she had managed to get Sirius to react, it was all to easy to make his temper flare. “You shouldn’t get angry at simple truths.”

“I. Said. Shut. Up,” said Sirius, voice booming above the screams of Azkaban in his anger. “You know nothing Bellatrix.”

“Oh I know many things Sirius,” cooed Bellatrix. “Do you want to know long your little Pettigrew friend’s been gone?”

Sirius didn’t respond but Bellatrix could practically touch his anger. This anger, real and tangible, was so much better than the ones that only existed in her mind. And it was her words, her actions, her will that caused it. For a moment Bellatrix once again felt power coursing through her veins.

“He’s been on our side for nearly a year, spying on you and your pathetic Order. In fact I was the one who recruited him in the first place.” For a moment, Pettigrew’s screams overwhelmed every other scream in Azkaban. “Oh, how he begged me to allow him to join the Dark Lord.”

“Go away Bella,” said Sirius, his voice all of a sudden cracked and broken. He sounded as if he was barely keeping his tears at bay and Bellatrix allowed herself to feel triumphant. “Just go away.”

“Where will I go my little Siri?” asked Bellatrix and even she could hear the madness in her voice. “Like it or not, my voice is the only voice you will ever here.”

“Go away,” said Sirius and if Bellatrix hadn’t known Sirius so well, she would have thought he was crying. “Leave me in peace.”

“You are in Azkaban Sirius,” said Bellatrix, allowing herself to laugh. “There is no peace here.”

Sirius remained silent. Bellatrix knew she would not get any more response from him, and felt the screams once again returning to her mind.

 

* * *

 

“What are you even screaming about?” Sirius asked her one day. The voices were too much and Bellatrix’ laugh had turned into screams a long time ago. Her resolve was not as strong as she had thought and had broken the moment she woke from her exhaustion induced sleep.

She fell silent when she heard Sirius’ words. It always managed to break through the fog of her mind. “I’d have thought you would have made yourself at home here,” he taunted.

“Leave me alone,” hissed Bellatrix. She didn’t think she had the patience or the restraint to deal with Sirius at the moment.

“Now you’re asking me to leave?” asked Sirius mockingly. Bellatrix flew at the bars and began to claw her way towards him in a desperate hope to reach him. Then maybe she would be able to hurt him, to make him shut up, touch him and remind herself that he was real and everything else was not.

“I don’t know what you want from me dear cousin,” continued Sirius and Bellatrix wanted to wipe that sneer off his face. He had no right, no right to be standing so tall and bright in the constant darkness. “One moment you tell me to leave the next you’re desperate for my touch. You never could make up your mind can you?”

“Shut up,” screamed Bellatrix, closing her eyes and placing her hands over her ears. He was too bright, too bright and too real and Bellatrix had gotten to used to the constant darkness. “Shut up!”

“Why dear cousin?” said Sirius looming over her and Bellatrix could feel his breath on her skin. “Are you scared? Is the great Bellatrix Lestrange finally beaten and broken? Oh how disappointed do you think the Dark Lord would be? How quickly do you think he’ll turn away--”

“Shut up! Shut up and leave me alone!”

Something banged on the bars of her cell and Bellatrix’ eyes snapped open. She was breathing hard and tears flowed in earnest from her eyes, she didn’t know when she began doing either.

Sirius was gone. Bellatrix could hear his distressed whimpers from the cell across her. He didn’t shine with the light of a thousand suns. He was just as enveloped by the darkness of Azkaban, just like her.

None of it had been real. None of it had been real.

Silence rung in her mind, despite the endless screaming of the other prisoners. Bellatrix found it to be just as maddening as the screams.

None of it had been real and Bellatrix was once again left alone in the dark.

 

* * *

 

Sometimes she would hear the bark of the dog through the halls, the scratching, the whimpering.

She didn’t know what it meant, and she didn’t know if it was real or not.

But then again she had lost track of that a long, long time ago.

 

* * *

 

There was a constancy to being in Azkaban and Bellatrix had slipped into it before she even knew it was their.

There was a constancy in how the dementors brought her food, how they passed by and almost always had one passing by her, never leaving her in peace.

There was a constancy in the screams and a constancy in the grief.

There was a constancy in the madness.

Bellatrix had lost track of time long ago. She might have been here for months, years, centuries, even millennia, and it wouldn’t have made a difference. She still clung to her life and what remained of herself with a vice grip. She refused to die, if anything out of spite. She still refused to be cowed.

If there was anything she kept in Azkaban throughout, it was her pride.

Another constant in Azkaban was that Sirius was almost always silent. Well at least he was silent compared to every other prisoner. He would just sit in his cell, silent and still as possible until he broke out into sobs. Later Bellatrix would think she could hear the phantom bark of a dog and Sirius would resume his silence, not one scream coming from his lips, barely shuffling in his cell. Bellatrix didn’t know how he did it and she no longer cared to find out.

But now something was different.

It all started when the Minister of Magic visited. He had said something to Sirius, what Bellatrix didn’t know, but immediately afterwards something changed within her cousin.

Sirius wasn’t screaming exactly, but he wasn’t huddled in his cell any more. Bellatrix could hear him pacing back and forth, muttering, never stopping, not once. It wasn’t madness exactly, and it wasn’t grief…

It was something like passion but that could never exist in a place like this. More like an obsession; and Sirius’ light somehow reignited out of it’s own accord.

She didn’t hear the bark of a dog for a very long time.

It was different and the difference cleared some of the fog in her mind. She was still in the dark but she could feel Sirius once again burning brighter than any star and Bellatrix craved it, longed to take it from him to drive away the darkness that enveloped her own mind.

 

* * *

 

Bellatrix didn’t know if she was dreaming or not when she saw the silhouette of a dog slam into the bars of her cell.

She reached out, her chains barely allowing her to touch the dog’s muzzle, and felt a sense of familiarity wash over her. The dog’s eyes were shining bright through the darkness of Azkaban, like the light of a thousand suns and Bellatrix felt as if she knew it from somewhere.

She stared at the dog for a long time and felt that the dog was staring at her as well. It drew away suddenly and tottered off, those light grey eyes disappearing in the endless darkness.

Some time later, alarms blared across the entire fortress. Dementors rushed back and forth, full of agitation and anger, more powerful than usual.

The reason for their anger was evident. Sirius’ cell was no longer occupied.

 

* * *

 

The dementors were furious after that and they made their fury evident. The darkness that had filled Azkaban seemed to thicken, filling the air with grief and misery and fear. The screams returned to Bellatrix in full force, just when she had been beginning to learn how to ignore them, they began shouting louder.

Sometimes she heard his hissing voice, whispering to her, and she could no longer understand what he said, but she could understand the tone well enough. She could practically touch the hate and disgust that radiated off him and all of it was directed at her.

Sometimes she felt Sirius or Regulus or her sisters, right beside her. Sometimes they just sat there, shining so bright, not needing to say any words to mock her. Sometimes they said them nonetheless.

Sometimes she heard the screams of a man who had his soul ripped from him.

Sometimes she forgot that none of it was real.

Bellatrix no longer had the strength to laugh any more and her throat was too torn to scream. She just pressed herself to the corner of her cell and laid her head on her knees and longed for the silence she could no longer remember.

 

* * *

 

It came to her in her sleep, one of the few precious moments she actually managed to get any form of rest, when exhaustion outweighed the screams.

A burn that came all of a sudden, sharp and unforgiving. She had felt it growing stronger for months now, but did not actually believe it was not just her mind playing tricks on her. Now there was no room to doubt. She could feel it in her very blood.

Bellatrix felt a laugh bubble up inside her, screeching and filled with hysteria madness, but there was something else in it that had ceased to exist at the same moment she entered the endless darkness; something almost like relief.

It would not be long now. Not now when the Dark Lord had returned.

 

* * *

 

The crashes filled Bellatrix’ ears and overpowered the screams. She sensed the dementors that had stood at her door disappear, perhaps to glide away and, and… Bellatrix didn’t know what they would do. No one had ever even attempted to the damage the fortress of Azkaban, let alone succeed.

And they were succeeding. Bellatrix could feel it in the chunks of rock that continued to crash down letting in the cool air and the patter of the rain; in the sudden, glaring light that overpowered the endless darkness of Azkaban; in the dwindling power the dementors had on her.

A man suddenly streaked across the halls and stopped right at her cell.

“Bellatrix,” the man breathed before waving his wand and blowing the door of its hinges. His face was covered with a mask but Bellatrix recognized her voice from somewhere, the image of grey eyes and blonde hair flashing in her eyes, a man standing side by side with her laughing sister. “Time to go now,” he said as he blasted the chains of her hands and feet as well.

Bellatrix just stared at him, scrutinizing him. She had never his voice amongst her screams before but she couldn’t help but feel that she did know him from somewhere. She was still trying to decide if he was actually real or not.

The man made an impatient noise before reaching out abruptly and yanking Bellatrix to her feet.

“There’s no time to lose Bellatrix,” he snapped. “We are still in a precarious situation and we cannot stay long. And the Dark Lord is waiting,” he added, sounding sly and encouraging and impatient at the same time.

_The Dark Lord?_ Bellatrix didn’t know if this was real or if was not. She didn’t know if this was a pleasant dream that had managed to slip through the darkness only to be ripped away from her when she was at her highest point, but she barrelled through it in the only way she had survived.

She released a breath and forced it to turn into a shriek of laughter that went on and on and on and on. She could feel the confusion emanating from the man she knows she knew but she paid it no heed. There was only her and her laughter. Her and her strength.

The Dark Lord was waiting, he had said. Perhaps it was real and perhaps it was not, it mattered little. Bellatrix Lestrange still refused to be cowed, especially if it would be in his presence.

\--Finis--

 

**Author's Note:**

> This took way too long for me to finish and I'm still not too happy about the outcome... Oh well, I hope you enjoyed it :)
> 
> I'm on [tumblr](http://pdfcct.tumblr.com/)! Come say hi :)


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